Open Eye Gallery

03/09/2026

Take part in a portrait photography project exploring identity, visibility, and self-expression, by photographer AJ!

This call out is for trans, non-binary, and gender-diverse people. Through relaxed portrait sessions and optional conversations, the project aims to celebrate trans joy and create space for honest, authentic representation. No modelling experience is needed, just a willingness to take part. Participants will receive copies of their portraits and be featured in a public exhibition celebrating the diverse experiences and stories within our community.

If you’re interested, please contact AJ at [email protected] before 19 October 2026.

AJ is a photographer and creative storyteller whose work explores identity, emotion, and human connection through honest visual storytelling. Their approach to photography is people-first, creating work that feels authentic, thoughtful, and emotionally honest, with a particular interest in the stories people carry through lived experience.

This call out is part of Transformations – a project led by Felix M***i in partnership with 20 Stories High, celebrating and supporting Merseyside-based transgender artists.

20 Stories High are working with 6 partner organisations to offer bursaries for transgender artists to create a new piece of work, and Open Eye Gallery are proud to be one of the partners. As part of Transformations, Open Eye Gallery is also supporting photographer Christine Beckett.

02/09/2026

Fiona Robinson is a socially engaged photographer based in Salford. She works with people to build community, confidence and photographic skills. As an ecologist who has worked in public health, she is particularly interested in wellbeing and green spaces – experience that has informed her practice as an OFFSHOOT photographer in residence. We've asked Fiona about her path to socially engaged photography.

“My background isn’t in the arts as my first degree is in Ecology, and MSc in Protected Landscape Management. I’ve worked in environmental education, sustainable tourism development, environmental improvement projects and as community development manager in a local authority public health team. So much of people’s health is dictated by things other than healthcare so things like their local environment and their social connections are key.

"My whole practice has developed from the MA (*MA in Socially Engaged Photography course is a joint programme that Open Eye Gallery has run with the University of Salford since 2018), so it was absolutely pivotal to this.

"Since graduating, I’ve been Open Eye Gallery’s photographer in residence at Merseycare’s Liferooms Walton, delivering several series of workshops that are about photography, but as much about confidence, connections and creativity.
Photography is a key way that people express themselves. It’s an incredibly accessible way of creating art, and for sharing experiences with others. I think socially engaged practice is really important at providing opportunities to share ideas and experiences through creativity.

"The OFFSHOOT project was a great way to pull together many different strands of my experience. Working regularly in the gardens for a year has meant that I’ve experienced it in all its seasonal guises, and a beautiful location is always going to help inspire beautiful creative work.

"There’s loads of research that both time in green space, and time being creative are really good for our health and wellbeing. I know this from my own life, that taking a quiet walk in the woods with my camera is the best way to reduce stress."

Images: Let’s Grow Preston, Fiona Robinson's MA project and RHS Bridgewater, OFFSHOOT project.

Full interview at openeye.org.uk

01/09/2026

We will be closed from 1–17 September to install our new exhibitions.

Join us for the launch on 17 September, 6 pm.

📸 New Faces, New Focus: Stories We Share is a collaborative touring exhibition bringing together new creative work by artists and community participants alongside objects and artworks from three museums collections across the UK, in partnership with Armagh, Banbridge and Craigavon Council and Aberdeenshire Council’s Museums Service

📸 In our Gallery 3 (upstairs), we will be launching Next Up-2026, an annual graduate exhibition of work from the MA in Socially Engaged Photography course, a joint programme Open Eye Gallery runs with the University of Salford.

RSVP to the launch event: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1998093867545

Image: Cat Bang Boxer by Eddie Rafferty, Armagh County Museum Collection.

New Faces, New Focus is part of Going Place, an Art Fund programme made possible with major support from The National Lottery Heritage Fund and The Julia Rausing Trust, with additional support from a generous group of trusts, foundations and individuals. Art Fund is continuing to fundraise to reach the full potential of the programme and make the biggest impact for museums and visitors across the UK.

25/08/2026

The People's Garden 🌿

We're absolutely blown away by the response we've had to our open call! You've shared your gardens and flowers, your quiet joys, your moments of celebration and contemplation – and it's a privilege to exhibit them.

It's your last chance to see our current exhibitions – on until 31 August. We are open 10am – 5pm Tuesday – Sunday (with special hours 11am – 4pm on Monday 31 August).

21/08/2026

Just one week left to see our current exhibitions: Is This A Garden? and The Perfect Flower.

Open Tuesday to Sunday, 10–5, until 31 August.

Works in this photo:

🍃 Clémentine Schneidermann and Charlotte James. Little Ghosts, Merthyr

Schneidermann and James create work that is socially engaged and participatory. It’s a long-term creative collaboration with young people from Blaenau Gwent and Merthyr Tydfil. Since 2015, they have been working with the same collaborators to co-create photographs that sit at the edges of documentary photography, portraiture, fashion and performance. Before each photoshoot, Schneidermann and James hosted creative workshops, giving the young collaborators opportunities to customise their clothing and learn skills such as sewing, photography, styling and set design.

🍃 Sabrina Tirvengadum, Family.

Family uses archival images and digital techniques to reimagine lost family histories connected to Mauritian indentured labour. Between the 1830s and the early 1900s, nearly 500,000 people were brought from India to Mauritius to work under coercive conditions on sugar plantations.

🍃 Daniel Meadows. The Mullings family, Penrith Avenue, Sale, Cheshire

I made this picture while travelling in my Free Photographic Omnibus (1973-74), a crowd-funded project which involved randomly encountering strangers in towns and cities across England and making their portraits. In April 1974, at no. 2 Penrith Avenue, the Mullings family posed in the driveway of their home. Peter was a Granada TV director. I asked them: ‘What makes your life worth living?’ She said: ‘The family.’ He said: ‘When the thing that you embark on with trepidation, not knowing when you start whether it is going to be successful, actually works out. Like mending a clock.’

Installation photo by Rob Battersby

18/08/2026

Our new exhibition, New Faces, New Focus: Stories We Share, launches 17 September, 6pm! Free, everybody welcome.

RSVP to the launch event: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1998093867545

This collaborative touring exhibition bringing together new creative work by artists and community participants alongside objects and artworks from three museums collections across the UK.

Created by Open Eye Gallery in partnership with Armagh City, Banbridge & Craigavon Borough Council and Aberdeenshire Council’s Aberdeenshire Museums Service, the exhibition is part of Art Fund’s Going Places programme.

Developed through residencies in Liverpool City Region, Armagh and Aberdeenshire, the exhibition explores the theme of journeys, identity and home through the voices of local communities whose stories have not always been represented in museum collections – including those with lived experience of migration and displacement.

Across all three locations, participants have worked alongside artists, curators and museum teams to explore the theme of journeys – from migration and exile to the milestones, traditions and celebrations that shape our lives – creating new work inspired by museum collections and their own experiences of place, identity and home.

Additionally, in our Gallery 3 (upstairs), we will also be launching Next Up-2026, an annual graduate exhibition of work from the MA in Socially Engaged Photography course, a joint programme Open Eye Gallery runs with the University of Salford. This year, it features work by Yaqeen Amir, Ella Horniman, Jack Smith, and Helen Constantinou in partnership with Homotopia (Contemporary Fine Art MA). More details to follow soon!

Going Places is an Art Fund programme made possible with major support from The National Lottery Heritage Fund and The Julia Rausing Trust, with additional support from a generous group of trusts, foundations and individuals. Art Fund is continuing to fundraise to reach the full potential of the programme and make the biggest impact for museums and visitors across the UK.

Image: Home Carried with Us by Nina Karetska

17/08/2026

Want to read more about gardens and green spaces? Interested in seeing further projects from the artists featured in our current exhibitions? Introducing five picks to accompany Is This A Garden? and The Perfect Flower – all available in our independent bookshop✨

🌳The Garden Against Time by Olivia Laing, £10.99
During her restoration of an overgrown garden in Suffolk, Laing explores the concept of paradise and its intricate ties to gardens throughout history.

🌳Forest by Yan Wang Preston, £45.00
This visually-striking project examines the complex politics of urban reforestation in China, capturing the reality of rapid green city initiatives.

🌳Fugue by Lydia Goldblatt, £45.00
Fugue is a four year photographic project that explores Goldblatt’s transition into motherhood as she simultaneously navigates the loss of her own mother.

🌳Pictures from the Garden, £35.00
Following from Paddy Summerfield’s book, Mother and Father, seven UK photographers respond to the Summerfield garden with their own family, exploring themes of aging and child-parent relationships.

🌳Now and Then by Daniel Meadows, £25.00
Now and Then documents a changing Britain over 45 years, stemming from Meadows’ photographs from his Free Photographic Omnibus project he started in the 1970s.

Our bookshop is open Tue - Sun, 10 - 5. Students and National Art Pass holders have a 10% discount.

12/08/2026

Eden in the garden by Lydia Goldblatt. Part of our current exhibition, Is This A Garden?

This photograph is from Fugue, a series about love and grief, mothering and losing a mother, intimacy and distance. Centring on the domestic space and made over the course of four years, the photographs depict rhythms of daily life, inherited objects and images made at night, tapping into the dissonance between tranquillity and a sense of invisible unease.

The word ‘Fugue’ holds two meanings. The musical definition of interweaving, repeating elements which collectively create a complex narrative. It also refers to a dissociative state or loss of self. Both meanings encompass the transformations that accompany motherhood and loss, and the deeply resonant pulse of domestic life.

Is This A Garden? is on until 31 August, open Tuesday – Sunday, 10 – 5, free, all welcome.

Installation image by Rob Battersby

07/08/2026